Ruffletron: Skirt, Neck Piece Make Beautiful Music When Touched

Any developer can throw together a music app, ranging from the simple to the revelatory. When someone takes the time to build a music app (of sorts) out of hardware, color us impressed. (See also: these swings.)

These items of apparel work in concert to make beautiful music, even if you can’t really walk around all day while wearing them. For now, this get-up requires connection to a computer, but future plans include adding on-board or at least wireless processing.

“To strive for simplicity, I asked myself — what is a recognizable shape or aspect of fashion design I can take and make interactive using electronics and DSP [digital signal processing]?” writes Grant. “I thought of the simple action of ruffling, well… a ruffle, and worked to extend that action into something more interesting and performative.”

Ruffletron incorporates LilyPad Arduino, Maxuino, Osculator, and Ableton Live. It sounds pretty great — and, hopefully, provides a glimpse of things to come in the boring old fashion industry.